Jim Ross Reveals What Led to His Forced WWE Retirement

Jim Ross revealed in an interview Grantland.com the reasoning behind his WWE release last summer and as expexted it had to do with the controversial WWE 2K14 Panel before the SummerSlam pay-per-view last year which featured an intoxicated Ric Flair.

"I don't think you have to be a Mensa member to figure out that it had an influence on decisions that were made. I was working with the developmental kids [in NXT] and enjoying that, and got called in for that job."

"It was a very unique night, to say the least. Ric was coming off maybe the most traumatic time of his life. [Flair's son Reid had recently died of a drug overdose.] In hindsight, it might not have been the most timely booking, to get him in that environment. And then you can look at the other side and say maybe it's a good thing to get him out around friends. As it worked out, you'd probably lean more to the former than the latter. But here's the deal. I was conductor of a runaway train. I was supposed to keep it on the tracks and that didn't happen. So I don't have any issues taking responsibility. Did I envision that it would help facilitate my exit? No. But I could see the thinking behind it."

"But honestly, people might not believe this, and I don't want to give one of those eye-rollers, but it really came at a good time. My health is good, I just celebrated my 62nd birthday, I got a lot of projects going. I'm going to start a podcast soon with the same company that does Austin and Jericho. I'm excited about that. I got Live Nation working with me on one-man shows and, of course, we start out the way we want to start out, in New York City, Saturday, March 1, at the Gramercy Theater."

To read the full interview and J.R's thoughts on football, MMA and his recent European tour click here.